Microsoft Azure

Hello and welcome to our joint **Cloud Platform Engineering London x Platform Engineering Leaders x Data & AI Leaders** meetup. This special crossover event brings together platform engineers, data and AI leaders, architects, SREs, and technology executives exploring how agentic AI systems intersect with modern platform engineering in regulated financial services environments. We are delighted to host this event at Lloyd's Banking Group in London. **Speakers & Sessions:** Panel: Agentic AI in the Enterprise Speakers: * Joseph Reeve, Growth, ElevenLabs * Chris Parsonson, CEO, Solve Intelligence * Joanna Crown, Director of Data, Moonpig * Sultan AI Awar, Solutions Architect (Digital Natives) at Databricks * Moderator: Ethan Sumner, Co-Founder & CEO at Community Stack Session: Agentic AI in Practice: How LBG is delivering scalable business value through AI Description: This session highlights LBG’s enterprise approach to scale Agentic AI, showing how the Group has built a scalable and safe foundation for Agentic AI through investments in data & AI platforms, governance frameworks, reusable agentic patterns, and AI upskilling for colleagues. Speakers: * Astitva Karunesh - AI Business Lead, AI CoE, Lloyds Banking Group * Lara Vomfell - Senior Data & AI Scientist, AI CoE, Lloyds Banking Group Session: How AI can catch what staging environments can't Description: Dylan from Overmind will spend five minutes explaining a complex Cloudfront outage that exposed the personal data of more than a hundred thousand people. Then another five minutes explaining the AI techniques that we used to simulate this exact outage using off-the-shelf models and live infrastructure state, which would have allowed them to prevent it before it ever happened. Speaker: Dylan Ratcliffe, Founder & CEO at Overmind **Agenda:** 18:00 — Arrival and refreshments 18:15 — Welcome and introduction — Ethan Sumner 18:20 — Agentic AI in Practice - LBG 18:40 — How AI can catch what staging environments can't - Dylan 18:50 — Break 19:00 — Agentic AI in the Enterprise 20:00 — Close and networking We are always keen to hear from: • Speakers • Hosts • Sponsors If you would like to speak, sponsor, or host a future event, please reach out to [Ethan Sumner](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethansumner404/) via LinkedIn. These communities form part of the [Community Stack](https://www.meetup.com/pro/generative-ai-uk-community/) ecosystem and follow the [Community Stack Code of Conduct](https://www.communitystack.io/code-of-conduct) and [Privacy Policy,](https://www.communitystack.io/privacy-policy) ensuring a respectful, inclusive, and welcoming environment for all attendees.

https://www.kingscrossspeakers.com/ Are you ready to unlock your full potential in public speaking and leadership? Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting your journey, our Toastmasters club offers a supportive and fun environment to grow your skills, gain confidence, and connect with like-minded individuals. **Why Join Us?** * **Practice Makes Perfect:** Gain hands-on experience by delivering speeches, participating in impromptu speaking exercises, and taking on leadership roles. * **Constructive Feedback:** Receive valuable, supportive feedback from peers to help you improve and thrive. * **Build Connections:** Network with a diverse group of people who share your passion for growth and communication. * **Flexible Learning:** Set your own pace while following Toastmasters' proven educational pathways tailored to your goals. **What Is Toastmasters?** Toastmasters International is a global organization dedicated to helping individuals improve their public speaking, communication, and leadership skills. Through a proven program and a vibrant community, you'll gain practical experience and confidence to excel in both personal and professional settings. **Who Should Join?** Our group welcomes anyone looking to sharpen their speaking and leadership skills in a warm, encouraging, and professional atmosphere. Whether you're preparing for a big presentation, seeking career advancement, or simply looking to improve your confidence, we’re here to help you succeed! **What to Expect at Our Meetings** * Engaging and interactive sessions with prepared speeches, impromptu speaking challenges, and constructive evaluations. * Opportunities to take on various roles that enhance different skills, from time management to meeting facilitation. * A friendly and supportive community that celebrates every success, big or small. Join us today and take the first step toward becoming the confident, skilled communicator and leader you've always wanted to be!

It's a ClickHouse Observability Meetup at SRE Days London! We've joined forces with the SRE Days team to host an evening meetup at their stunning venue. Join us for a few deep-dive talks, some food, and beverages. In fact, we are so excited that we have a discount if you want to attend the entirety of the event. Just head on over to https://luma.com/sreday-2026-london-q1 and use the code CLICK80 for a massive discount. Looking forward to seeing you there! Agenda: 5:30 - Arrival 6:00 - Uncovered: The Hard Truth About OpenTelemetry's Vendor Neutrality - Adriana Villela 6:30 - Observability Updates in ClickHouse - Dale McDiarmid 7:00 - How we built an SRE Agent with Clickhouse and eBPF - Chris Battarbee 7:30 - Running Grafana at Scale - Rory Crispin

Join us for Jukebox Night next Thursday! Build our playlist live from 7PM. Whether you're into disco hits or rock classics, there’s a track for every mood. Our only rule - it's Throwback Thursday! From great pours to nostalgic sounds, get ready for the ultimate retro night out. **THE VENUE** The Angel & Crown is a funky, 70s-inspired pub with beautiful decor and an intimate vibe. Laugh the night away with our craft beers, hand-crafted cocktails, and delicious food. Check out our instagram **[@angel_and_crown_bethnal](https://www.instagram.com/angel_and_crown_bethnal/ "https://www.instagram.com/angel_and_crown_bethnal/")** **TABLE BOOKINGS** If you fancy taking your night to the next level, book a table at **[angelandcrown.co.uk](https://www.angelandcrown.co.uk/ "https://www.angelandcrown.co.uk/")** and we'll make sure you have the best seats in the house.

Hello folks! The next Ansible meetup is scheduled for **Thursday 12th March**. **Location** Metro Bank have kindly offered us use of their offices at 1 Southampton Row, London WC1B 5HA, short walk from Holborn Tube. The entrance is just down from the bank itself on Southampton row. Facing the Metrobank branch with Sainsburys behind you, head to the right past the bank and its on your left about 25mtrs. **As always, please bring photo ID.** **Agenda** Speaker: Gregor Berginc - Xlabs CEO Session Title: Ansible Beyond the YAML: Understanding Automation as a Supply Chain Summary: This talk explores what really runs during an Ansible execution beyond playbooks and roles. We’ll look at the hidden layers of the automation supply chain and why understanding them matters as automation scales. The goal is to share a mental model that helps practitioners move fast while understanding what truly runs in production. **Lightning Talks & Discussion** We will have lightning talks, and **accepting talks and discussions on the day**, so bring your laptop and slides/Playbooks or just start a discussion. We are looking for a for 5-15 minute lightning talks. Slides and demo optional, we are here for the discussion. We've love for you to [share your Ansible story](https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-london-meetup/issues/new?template=submit-a-talk.md). **Refreshments & Pizza** Besides the talks, we'll have the obligatory refreshments and pizza. So come along, mingle with fellow Ansiblings, and hopefully learn something interesting from the experiences shared. **Talks wanted!** We are looking for talks (5-20 minutes) for this, and future meetups. If you have something you'd like to talk about at a future meetup, submit your talk via the [London GitHub Repo](https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-london-meetup/issues/new/choose). Here's a list of topics people would like to hear about – can you give a future talk on any of these [popular requests](https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-london-meetup/issues/37)? We look forward to seeing you on Thursday 12th March.

Life Drawing Friendly sessions for all levels run by professional artist for 16 years. U

**SREday: In-Person Event on SRE, DevOps & Cloud in LONDON** Conference focused on Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), DevOps, and cloud infrastructure, bringing together engineers, platform teams, and leaders to share real-world experience building, scaling, and operating reliable production systems. 🫆[Speakers & Topics](https://sreday.com/2026-london-q1/) 🎟 [Tickets](https://luma.com/sreday-2026-london-q1?from=embed)

**DevOps Not Dead: In-Person Event on DevOps, Platform & Cloud in LONDON** Conference focused on modern DevOps, platform engineering, and cloud infrastructure. It brings together engineers, SREs, and platform teams to share practical experience in CI/CD, Kubernetes, automation, cloud architecture, reliability, and operating production systems at scale. **🎤 [Speakers & Topics](https://devopsnotdead.com/2026-london-q1/)** **🎟 [Tickets](https://luma.com/devopsnotdead-2026-london-q1?from=embed)** Get your ticket — 50% OFF with promo code: MEETUP50

Join us for Grafana talks mixed with snacks and community conversations! Schedule 18:00-18:30 Welcome, snacks, drinks and networking 18:30-19:00 **From Service to Line Number: Getting Started with Continuous Profiling** by Christian Simon, Principal Engineer at Grafana Logs, metrics, and traces tell you which service is slow or expensive. Profiles tell you which code path - down to the line number. With profiling now part of OpenTelemetry, and the eBPF profiler requiring zero instrumentation, there's never been a better time to add this missing piece to your observability stack. 1\. Value of Continuous Profiling 2\. How do you set up continuous profiling \(Pyroscope \+ OTel eBPF profiler\) 3\. Deriving insights from Profiles using Grafana Assistant 4\. Demo 19:00-19:40 **My Cool Grafana Dashboard Show and Tell - Lightning Talks** **Lightning talks:** **1\. What if Your Career Had Metrics?** **Roxana Turc, Software Engineer at BNY**, will show how she used Grafana to build a **career dashboard—tracking learning, work, and growth**, and why seeing her progress this way changed how she thinks about development. **2\. Using Grafana for Visualising IoT Air Quality Sensor Data** by John Sinha, Lead Technical Business Analyst IoT air quality sensors produce noisy, high-resolution time series data, but how you visualise it determines what you actually see. This lightning talk walks through a Grafana dashboard designed to **present environmental data clearly, covering time and value scaling choices, linear vs. log views, and practical denoising techniques.** See how small visualisation decisions can dramatically change the story your sensor data tells. 3. **How I discovered pigeons sabotaging my project with Kafka and Grafana** \- by Hugh Evans\, Developer Advocate at Aiven Learn how how a lightweight Kafka + Grafana observability stack helped Hugh **catch his avian adversaries** and iterate on a hobby project **without enterprise-scale complexity or costs**.

Come and join us for a coffee/tea and chat as we discuss what’s hype and what’s real as well as how analytics helps us fight human trafficking. All Food and drink must be paid for as you consume it. A minimum of a drink must be orders can be water soft drink or coffe/tea etc excellent cocktails available.

We are back! This is going to be a monthly IN PERSON meet up in London. A very big thank you goes to Accurx who is hosting us in their amazing Shoreditch offices. This will include access to facilities including coffee! 😻☕️ **Want to know more? 👇** As with all CoffeeOps, this is an interactive, chatty, build your own adventure type of meet-up. Instead of booking in experts to *learn* *from*, we gather a group of practitioners to ***learn*** ***with***. We have been running for over 4 years now and often get feedback that this is the most useful meetup people join! The event is approximately 90 minutes and always starts by brainstorming topics to discuss. The group then votes on the most relevant/interesting to them and we then cycle through the topics trying to discuss each deeply, but in a time bound slot. To get an idea of topics, you can check out our remote board [here](https://easyretro.io/publicboard/h404NF84Uje4tCcxpJdHr4Ycs9B3/a4a35d2b-181b-409b-832e-a729be1af79c). The general gist is anything is fair game, though we tend to revolve around software delivery and definitely lean towards the more Ops-y or DevOps-y side of things.

## Allies of Women in Data & AI A panel discussion spotlighting women’s careers in data & AI. **📍 Venue:** [Datatonic](https://datatonic.com/) HQ **🎙️ Panellists:** * [Hazal Muhtar (Wise)](https://www.linkedin.com/in/hazalmuhtar/) * [Laura Lewis (Monzo)](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauralewisuk/) * [Josie Williams (Global)](https://www.linkedin.com/in/josiewilliams/) * [Lina Mikolajczyk (Venatus)](https://www.linkedin.com/in/linajczyk/) **🎤 Compere:** [Adam Dathi](https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-dathi-384a4329/) Event & Afterparty Sponsor: [Meltano](https://meltano.com/) This event centres the real career journeys of women working in data and AI — from breaking in, to navigating challenges, to stepping into leadership. Through an open, honest panel discussion, our speakers will share: * The realities of building a career in data & AI * Barriers they’ve faced (and how they’ve worked around them) * Practical advice for women aspiring to senior and leadership roles The panel will be followed by an audience Q&A and relaxed, meaningful networking with women in data & AI and the allies who support them. *** ### Why this event exists Despite progress, women are still underrepresented in data & AI leadership. This event is about visibility, learning from lived experience, and creating space for better conversations. Delivered in collaboration with [Stacked Pathways](https://cognifysearch.com/stackedpathways/), a free mentoring initiative for women working in Data & AI, organised by [Cognify](https://cognifysearch.com/). *** **Who should attend** * Women working in (or moving into) data & AI * Allies who want to listen, learn, and actively support change

More Info and Sign Up: https://luma.com/tcftv41z

Hi Everyone, We’re thrilled to announce that Meet-Up #9, the first one for 2026, is now confirmed for Thursday, 12th March! 🎉 Join us at our London HQ, 100 Liverpool Street, for an evening packed full of insightful talks, great conversations and plenty of opportunities to connect with like-minded individuals. We'll confirm the speakers next week! Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper meet-up without pizza and refreshments to keep the energy high all night! 🍕🥤 🕕 Doors open for networking at 18:00 🎤 The first talk kicks off at 18:30 🚪 Wrapping up at 20:30

The global Azure community is coming together again, and Columbus is officially on the map. On **Saturday, April 18, 2026**, the Azure Columbus Meetup is hosting our local edition of Global Azure 2026. This is a free, community-driven event packed with learning, networking, and all things Microsoft Azure. Whether you’re building modern cloud-native apps, experimenting with AI agents, deploying containers, automating infrastructure, or just beginning your Azure journey, this event is for you! **What to Expect** * Engaging technical sessions * Real-world Azure architecture & cloud-native patterns * AI, agents, automation, and modern DevOps * Food and drinks (because learning burns calories) * Time to connect with fellow engineers, architects, and cloud enthusiasts We’re lining up a strong set of speakers from the local and regional Azure community. Speaker announcements coming soon! **Who Should Attend?** * Software engineers (any language, any stack) * Cloud architects * DevOps engineers * Data professionals * AI explorers * Platform builders * Anyone who loves solving hard problems with great tools If you build, deploy, automate, scale, monitor, or optimize in Azure, you’ll feel right at home. **Why Global Azure?** Global Azure is a worldwide community event where Azure user groups host learning sessions on the same day across the globe. It’s grassroots. It’s technical. It’s practical. And it’s powered by people who genuinely love sharing what they’ve learned. And yes, it’s free to attend!

Discover Kiro, AWS’s innovative development environment that adapts to your workflow. Whether you prefer specification-driven development or a more intuitive, vibe-based approach, Kiro empowers you to build applications your way. In this session, speakers will explore Kiro’s core functionality and its evolution through re:Invent 2025, along with demonstrations of prompts used to create APIs, hooks, and steering documents. In the latter part of the session, watch as we build a complete example from scratch, showcasing Kiro’s agentic AI workflow in action for spec-driven development and vibe coding. What You'll Learn - Core Kiro concepts and development philosophy Feature evolution: pre and post re:Invent 2025 Practical examples: API creation, hooks, and steering docs Live coding demonstration with real-time problem solving Who Should Attend - Developers, solutions architects, and technical leaders interested in modern AWS development tools and AI-assisted coding workflows. **Speakers Bio:** Matthew Jorat: Matthew Jorat is a Customer Solutions Manager at AWS with nearly three decades of expertise in AI, cloud transformation, migration, modernization, IT, technology, and business. His career spans infrastructure engineer, solutions architect, security auditor, customer success director, support and services director, and operations officer. He was an early adopter of AWS services as a customer, and his current role at AWS uniquely blends his technical and business skills as he partners with executive teams to translate strategic priorities into measurable business outcomes through cloud adoption, AI implementation, and operational excellence. Matt leads end-to-end AI initiatives for enterprise customers, identifying high-impact use cases and maintaining relentless focus on measurable ROI. He holds eight AWS certifications and serves as Adjunct Professor at Franklin University teaching cloud computing and AWS architecture. His expertise encompasses GenAI, agentic AI systems, migration, modernization, and optimization strategies that drive transformation at scale. [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattjorat/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattjorat/) Girish Bhatia: Girish Bhatia is a seasoned technology delivery leader with deep expertise in cross-domain program management. He holds multiple AWS certifications, including AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate, AWS Certified Developer – Associate, and AWS Generative AI Practitioner, and is also an AWS Community Builder. Girish brings over two decades of experience in the information technology industry. Throughout his career, Girish has led major technology-driven business transformation from modernizing on-premises applications to driving large-scale cloud migrations. His work includes API-based integration platforms, data-center and mainframe modernization, and enterprise cloud adoption initiatives. Based in Columbus, Ohio, Girish works at a tech-forward fintech company. He is passionate about AWS serverless architectures, Generative AI and emerging cloud technologies. An avid learner and builder, he continues to explore and apply the latest innovations in AWS to help organizations accelerate their digital transformation. https://www.linkedin.com/in/girishbhatia/[https://www.linkedin.com/in/girishbhatia/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/girishbhatia/) **THANK YOU** *Franklin University* for hosting our meetup! To learn more about *Franklin University*, please visit their website: https://www.franklin.edu/ **DIRECTIONS** Franklin University Fisher Hall 300 E. Main St, Columbus, OH 43215 Map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jxjBA2hUmS5qrvhq8 Parking is FREE! Please park in Lot C in front of Fisher Hall. See attached map. NOTE: Map the address only. When mapping with Google Maps it may use the Fisher Hall at OSU, which is NOT correct. **Want to sponsor the pizza and/or bar tab?** Please contact me if you would like to sponsor this meetup's pizza and/or bar tab: angelo@mandato.com

Builders, creators, architects, admins, consultants - come one, come all. This one's for you. We're bringing a little friendly competition to the Columbus ServiceNow community while highlighting the cool things people have built on the platform. Five presenters will take the stage to showcase something they've built, solved, designed, or imagined on the ServiceNow platform - and a panel of judges (plus YOU, our amazing audience) will score them live. So basically, America's Got Talent but make it ServiceNow's Got Talent. Bring a notepad if you'd like 'cause you'll definitely be learning something new. Each presenter gets 10 minutes max to wow the crowd with: • A demo • A real-world business solution • A bold idea • A UX transformation • Or a creative use of the platform Judging Criteria: 🏆 Business Value 🚀 Innovation ✨ User Experience This event is about celebrating ideas, sharing knowledge, and showing how ServiceNow can drive both business impact and meaningful user value. Come learn. Come support. Come get inspired. Refreshments and bites will be provided. And maybe next time… you’ll be on stage.

Join Neurospicy Columbus at the Stauff's for coffee and then a stroll through the Book Loft nearby! This will be a friendly chat for like minded individuals with Autism and/or ADHD (or somewhere on the Neurodiverse Spectra).

Drake Lundstrom is presenting: Code Anywhere by Talking to your Phone Abstract: Have you heard the trend of people deploying code anywhere from checkout lines to doctors' offices? In this talk, you will learn how to talk to your phone and have an app on Azure to show your friend 5 minutes later. The basic DevOps tools you already know, plus a little bit of AI magic, are all you need! If you want to follow along, the demo will be in Azure with GitHub Actions and GitHub Copilot, and you can have it set up on your phone by the end of the session. Just come in with an Azure account and a GitHub repo. Join us for pizza, drinks, and networking @ Improving's office. Doors open at 5:45.

So this month's prompt is more general. I think we can all agree that we are living in "unique" times that require coping skills. I think that one role and/or purpose of philosophy is to help us deal with our daily lives and our "unique" times. So, let's share our feelings and thoughts about which philosopher/philosophy we turn to in order to deal with our crazy events. Who/what helps you stay focused in your daily life and helps you sleep at night. I find that Stoicism with a little philosophical pessimism mixed in goes a long way in helping me deal with what I see as very destructive, fearful and mean spirited public policies at both the state and federal levels. Hope to see you on March 28th!